The subject has been discussed ad nauseam and debunked over and over. In the US batteries are recycled or reused and it's probably the same in Europe. It might be more difficult elsewhere but car batteries are very valuable so I would think there's a supply chain market for them.Scratched EV battery? Your insurer may have to junk the whole car
For many EVs, even slightly damaged battery packs cannot be repaired, leading to higher premiums and undercutting gains from going electric.
Bloomberg
LONDON/DETROIT -- For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents, forcing insurance companies to write off cars with few miles -- leading to higher premiums and undercutting gains from going electric.
And now those battery packs are piling up in scrapyards in some countries, a previously unreported and expensive gap in what was supposed to be a "circular economy."
"We are buying electric cars for sustainability reasons," said Matthew Avery, research director at automotive risk intelligence company Thatcham Research. "But an EV isn't very sustainable if you've got to throw the battery away after a minor collision."
Battery packs can cost tens of thousands of dollars and represent up to 50 percent of an EV's price tag, often making it uneconomical to replace them.
While some automakers like archiveFord and GM said they have made battery packs easier to repair, Tesla has taken the opposite tack with its Model Y, whose new structural battery pack has been described by experts as having "zero repairability."
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
A Reuters search of EV salvage sales in the U.S. and Europe shows a large portion of low-mileage Teslas, but also models from Nissan, Hyundai Motor, Stellantis, BMW, Renault and others.
EVs constitute only a fraction of vehicles on the road, making industry-wide data hard to come by, but the trend of low-mileage zero-emission cars being written off with minor damage is growing. Tesla's decision to make battery packs "structural" -- part of the car's unibody -- has allowed it to cut production costs but risks pushing those costs back to consumers and insurers.
Tesla has not referred to any problems with insurers writing off its vehicles. But in January CEO Elon Musk said premiums from third-party insurance companies "in some cases were unreasonably high."
Unless Tesla and other automakers produce more easily repairable battery packs and provide third-party access to battery cell data, already-high insurance premiums will keep rising as EV sales grow and more low-mileage cars get scrapped after collisions, insurers and industry experts said.
"The number of cases is going to increase, so the handling of batteries is a crucial point," said Christoph Lauterwasser, managing director of the Allianz Center for Technology, a research institute owned by the insurer Allianz.
Lauterwasser noted EV battery production emits far more CO2 than fossil-fuel models, meaning EVs must be driven for thousands of miles before they offset those extra emissions.
"If you throw away the vehicle at an early stage, you've lost pretty much all advantage in terms of CO2 emissions," he said.
Most automakers said their battery packs are repairable, though few seem willing to share access to battery data. Insurers, leasing companies and car repair shops are already fighting with automakers in the EU over access to lucrative connected-car data.
Lauterwasser said access to EV battery data is part of that fight. Allianz has seen scratched battery packs where the cells inside are likely undamaged, but without diagnostic data it has to write off those vehicles.
Ford and GM tout their newer, more repairable packs. But the new, large 4680 cells in the Model Y are glued into a pack that forms part of the car's structure and cannot be easily removed or replaced, experts said.
In January, Musk said the automaker has been making design and software changes to its vehicles to lower repair costs and insurance premiums.
The company also offers its own insurance product in a dozen U.S. states to Tesla owners at lower rates.
Insurers and industry experts also note that EVs, because they are loaded with all the latest safety features, so far have had fewer accidents than traditional cars.
Tesla batteries have a 100k miles or 10 years warranty. I've been looking at modifying a classic into an EV and can attest to the difficulty and cost to obtain Tesla batteries.
With their new structural solution it gets very complicated to replace (as Monroe demonstrated). I wonder how Tesla services them... Maybe replace the vehicle? Of course, every auto manufacturer has a supply chain process. I'm only familiar with Tesla.
It remains if we want to talk about that, ICE vehicles have been rotting in junk yards for many decades and engine oil seeping in the grounds of many of those and dirty garages.
